BlueLightCamp at British APCO 2014

As many of you will already know this year’s BlueLightCamp is being Ordnance Survey’s HQ in Southampton this year, unlike previous years which have been at Manchester Central.

However, that doesn’t mean that our close ties with British APCO** (British Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials) have vanished. In fact they have become stronger with BACPO continuing to support BlueLightCamp over the year and Sasha Taylor and Mark Braggins both joining BAPCO’s Executive Committee in 2013. (Sasha is also BAPCO’s social media and web advisor).

BlueLightCamp will still be represented at British APCO’s Annual Exhibition and Professional Workshops in Manchester this year, but our presence there will be more about highlighting what BlueLightCamp is about and finding out what they key challenges and issues are which BlueLightCamp might help tackle.

We’re delighted that Christine (Musterpoint) and Gill (Ordnance Survey) will be joining us in the BlueLightCamp area at BAPCO 2014 – we’ll be located above the entrance to the Manchester Central venue – and will be on-hand to chat to attendees about their ideas and issues. Challenges identified at BAPCO 2014 will then be fed into our online presence. The discussion group is a free-for-all area to suggest topics, ask questions, and generally connect in the lead up to BlueLightCamp 2014 at OS so that people will have an idea of some topics that may be discussed or issues worked on with the hackathon.

To help get this message out to British APCO members, we have an article (page 30) of the March edition of British APCO’s Journal. This goes out to emergency service organisations often to the control rooms – therefore we are hoping that people will be coming to the event with ideas having read the article.

Look out for us at British APCO on 1-2 April at Manchester Central and come and talk about your ideas and issues with Christine and Gill.

Note: ** British Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials is a growing community with extensive communications knowledge gained as a result of delivering real life public safety. British APCO fosters knowledge exchange in communications to support and improve the delivery of public safety.